Just Like a Monarchy
by Joelle8
Summary: It was all the Potter Curse's fault.


_**Dedicated to **_**echoing noise**_**, a.k.a. Paige, who dared me to do this! The dare is as follows:**_

**Jo, dare you to do a JamesRose. Prompts - and you have to use all of them - are:**

**not ****(or ****knot****)****, rhyme, ill, left, ignore**** (or ****ignorance****), ****naive, angry, reason, doubt, hold hands, broken up (****be creative with that one****), ****and ****pronoun.**

**Or, you can use only five of the thirteen prompts - but if you do, the fic has to be either under 60 words, or above 700.**

_**That's copied-and-pasted. So, yes, I'm doing a little incest in this one. I say **_**a little **_**because there's no action, nothing graphic; just thoughts and feelings. The **_**T **_**rating is just because of the language, which is bad at some points.**_

Just Like a Monarchy

It was the Potter Curse's fault.

All Potters just _had _to fall for a redhead, didn't they? It didn't matter how many perfectly nice blonds, brunettes, and other not-red-haired girls came along; if you were a Potter male, then you would end up falling for a redhead.

End of story.

But the beginning of James'.

XxxxX

She was an eternal _not_. _Not _an angel, _not _just her parents' daughter. She may have been the Brightest Witch of her age, yeah, but _not_ in grades; she didn't give a shit about grades, so she didn't even try. (It goes without saying that if she had, she would've beaten everyone else out of the water.) She wasn't all _warmthhugssmiles_ like her other Weasley relatives; if they were right, then she was left.

And she took pride in that.

Maybe that was why James seemed to be the only exception to her _i-i-icy _exterior. He knew that she was different; he told her so; he accepted it. "What's the big deal about you being different?" he would ask when they were younger, sitting outside by a frozen pond, holding hands so they wouldn't freeze to death (no other reason).

Rose would smile- not a happy one, but a grim one, an almost sad one- and say in a voice aged far too much for someone not even at school yet, "It's hard to explain, Jamie. Our parents fought for a world without evil, yeah; but in doing that, they've forgotten that there are different types of good than just them."

"Aunt 'Mione and Uncle Ron don't think you're evil!" The idea was preposterous; they _adored _their daughter. But Rose just laughed, shaking her head.

"No, but they don't trust me enough not to _turn _evil."

James couldn't help but wonder how a girl one year younger than him could be so wise, so morbid, without breaking up into thousands of pieces, like a vase thrown at a wall. He knew that if _his _brain was filled with those kinds of thoughts, he'd be as broken as a glass at a Jewish wedding. He was much happier that he was naïve.

If only Rose could be, too.

XxxxX

Redheads look too good in green for none of them to ever end up in Slytherin.

Rose looked striking in her Hogwarts robes.

XxxxX

Years passed, and James became Rose's rock. Throughout the Howlers, the disappointment, the rumors, the _pressure _of it all, James would always be at Rose's side. There wasn't any special reason- what else were best friends before?

And best friends they were. It was the typical cliché story: best friends do everything together, realize that they're meant to be, and fall for each other. With that evil little twist that, y'know, they're _cousins_, so they weren't meant to be _at all_.

Except that they sort of _were_, because the Weasley girls happened to be the only redheads at Hogwarts besides Al's girlfriend, so James was going to have to fall for one of them eventually.

XxxxX

He couldn't help but feel insulted when he found Rose scribbling on a paper with a passionate fervor, asked her what she was writing, and was promptly told, "Nothing, go away."

She hadn't even looked up.

So of course James had to poke her until she did.

"I'm _busy_, James!" she snapped when she finally graced him with her gaze, dark eyes narrowed.

"Doing what?" he asked. "Not schoolwork, surely."

Rose snorted. "Of course not, that's about as likely as my father accepting that I'm in Slytherin."

James didn't let the awkward silence begin. "So then what _are _you doing?"

"I told you, it's nothing!" Rose exclaimed, her cheeks flushing. "Just- just a little verse, that's all."

"Like a poem?" Rose reluctantly nodded. "That's so cool! Can I read it?"

"No!" The redhead looked horrified at the mere idea of it. "It's awful, James, really. Very amateur. I don't want to make you ill."

"_You're _the ill one; you're crazy enough to think that your poem's bad! I'm sure it's amazing, now give it here!"

"_No!_"

The ensuing fight lasted about fifteen minutes and traveled throughout the entire room, which was mercifully empty. Chairs were turned over; couches were trodden upon. Finally, James tripped over something- he didn't get a chance to see _what _exactly- and ended up flat on the ground.

Or at least, he would've been if Rose wasn't directly under him.

They both froze. They were old enough to know what this… _position _meant. For a few minutes, they stared at each other; Rose's eyes were brown like Aunt Hermione's, but seemed so much _darker_, almost a black really, like a black hole, sucking him in…

He blinked and forced himself to snap out of it, grabbing Rose's poem out of her hand and jumping up triumphantly. She yelped and followed suit.

"_No! _Give that back! Don't you _dare _read it- I start some sentences with pronouns, that's practically blasphemy in writing- _close that parchment, James_!"

James wasn't listening. He was too busy reading. When he was done, he looked up at Rose in awe.

"Rosie, this is… _amazing_," he breathed. "You've got a real talent."

To her surprise, instead of blushing modestly and insisting with an abashed smile that it wasn't _that _good, she _glared _at him. Flat-out _glared_. Her eyes narrowed; her bottom lip trembled.

She was _angry_.

"That was _mine_," she growled. "_Mine_. I know damn well that I'm good at poetry, James, and that was _my secret_. Our family's too fucking big for any of us to have a secret, and I was proud of myself for being the exception. And now _you've ruined it_."

James gaped at her. "I- I'm sorry, Rosie, I didn't mean to-"

"Oh, of _course _you didn't," the Slytherin scoffed. "That's why you just chased me around the room for fifteen minutes to get it!"

"I didn't know it was a _secret_-"

"_Duh _it was a secret, _that's why I didn't tell you in the first place!_" Her eyes softened suddenly, and she sighed, tired. "Just… keep it, okay? I'll… see you around."

"Rose- Rose, _wait_!" James called out, but Rose was already gone (he wondered why that hurt so much). What was her _problem_? It was an _accident_, and it wasn't as if James was going to tell anyone about this secret of hers.

_There has to be some other reason, _he decided in a rare show of logic; on a whim, he reread the poem.

_Flash, crash, boom,  
__Just as cars race, brooms zoom  
__Through the air, this way and that  
__And one figure is the king of them,  
__The king of everything  
__To her._

_Brr, brr,  
__It's cold outside, little girl,  
__Don't you want to go back in?  
__"No," she says,  
__"I like it this way,"  
__And no one can dissuade her  
__From spending the day  
__Out there  
__In the cold  
__In the brr, brr cold._

_So he goes out and sits with her  
__Because that way, if she gets hypothermia  
__At least she won't be alone  
__In the cold  
__In the brr, brr cold._

_They hold hands  
And they talk  
And it's oh-so-innocent that really,  
It's anything but  
__In the cold  
In the brr, brr cold._

_And she never tells that boy,  
__That king of everything,  
__That he is the king of everything  
__(Including her heart)  
__No, she keeps her feelings shut up tight  
__Under lock and key and lock again  
__Because she may be the rebel  
__The evil[-but-not-really] one  
__But she knows better  
__She knows better_

_So she stays __out there  
__In the cold  
__In the brr, brr cold._

His second thought was that the poem, though beautiful, didn't have much in the way of rhyming at all. His first was that the girl sounded an awful lot like Rose, and he didn't know who her King could be besides him.

XxxxX

For the following week, she ignored him, and he used that time to contemplate his theory. Doubts came and went and eventually stayed; nevertheless, he made up his mind. He knew what he had to do.

One day, as he left History of Magic, he saw her; before she could react, he grabbed her arm and pulled her aside, protesting and kicking, into an empty classroom.

"Just talk to me," he asked before she could even scream. "Please. Is that so much to ask for?"

"When you've practically kidnapped me? Yes, yes it is."

"I haven't, though. You can leave anytime you want; the door's not locked," the Gryffindor pointed out. "I'm _asking _you to talk to me, not forcing you to. I miss you. We haven't spoken all week."

"Really? I hadn't noticed." James could tell by the way that Rose is staring _so _brazenly into his eyes that she was lying.

"Bullshit," he declared shortly, and then changed the topic before Rose could get hot-headed on him (even if she did look rather sexy when she got like that). "Here's your poem," he told her, placing it gently into her soft hand.

"Thank you," she replied stiffly, avoiding his gaze.

"It's really good. Amazing, actually." Rose said nothing, so James went on. "You know, I started thinking about the British monarchy from reading it. 'Cause there's a king mentioned in it and everything. I looked it up in the library- don't give me that look!- and a lot of kings married their cousins."

Rose froze.

"Yep. Third cousins, second cousins, even first cousins. I was thinking about it, and I don't think that the king in your poem should be any exception."

Rose blinked. James smirked. "Think about it," he advised with a wink. Then he left the classroom, letting her do exactly that.

XxxxX

(It didn't take her too long to make her decision. The Weasley family is Wizarding royalty these days anyways.)

_**Well, there it is. The poem, just so you know, was written by yours truly; I know that it doesn't have a set number of lines per verse, but deal with it. Like Rose said, she's an amateur. :P**_

_**Hope you all didn't hate it! Thanks for reading, and please review! ^^**_

_**-Joelle8**_


End file.
